Knowledge Update

​London, May 19 (IANS) Scientists have found evidence of icy comets orbiting a nearby Sun-like star, which may give a glimpse into how our own solar system developed.

An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, detected very low levels of carbon monoxide gas around HD 181327, which is located around 160 light years away in the Painter constellation.

The amounts of carbon monoxide detected using data from the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) -- an astronomical interferometre of radio telescopes in the Atacama desert of northern Chile -- are consistent with the comets in our own solar system.

The results of the study were presented at the recently-held 'Resolving Planet Formation in the era of ALMA and extreme AO' conference in Santiago, Chile. They have been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The young star system is about 23 million years old and the study is the first step in establishing the properties of comet clouds around Sun-like stars just after the time of their birth.

"Young systems such as this one are very active, with comets and asteroids slamming into each other and into planets," said led author Sebastian Marino from Cambridge.

"The system has a similar ice composition to our own, so it's a good one to study in order to learn what our solar system looked like early in its existence," Marino added.

Using ALMA, the astronomers observed the star, which is surrounded by a ring of dust caused by the collisions of comets, asteroids and other bodies.

It's likely that this star has planets in orbit around it, but they are impossible to detect using current telescopes.

HD 181327 has a mass about 30 percent greater than the Sun. ​

Geneva, May 19 (IANS) Dramatic gains in life expectancy have been made globally since 2000, but major inequalities persist within and among countries, according to a new report published by World Health Organisation (WHO).

The report, titled "World Health Statistics 2016: Monitoring Health for the SDGs", noted that life expectancy increased by five years between 2000 and 2015 -- the fastest increase since the 1960s, Xinhua news agency reported.

The biggest increase came from WHO African Region, where life expectancy increased by 9.4 years to 60 years, driven mainly by improvements in child survival, malaria control and expanded access to antiretrovirals for treatment of HIV.

"The world has made great strides in reducing the needless suffering and premature deaths that arise from preventable and treatable diseases," said Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO.

"But the gains have been uneven. Supporting countries to move towards universal health coverage based on strong primary care is the best thing we can do to make sure no-one is left behind," Chan said.

Global life expectancy for children born in 2015 was 71.4 years (73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males), but an individual child's outlook depends on where he or she is born.

The report showed that newborns in 29 high-income countries have an average life expectancy of 80 years or more, while newborns in 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have life expectancy of less than 60 years.

In China, the life expectancy reaches 76.1 years (77.6 years for females and 74.6 years for males).

With an average lifespan of 86.8 years, women in Japan can expect to live the longest. 

Switzerland enjoys the longest average survival for men, at 81.3 years. People in Sierra Leone have the world's lowest life-expectancy for both genders: 50.8 years for women and 49.3 years for men.

​London, May 20 (IANS) Treatments involving long-term use of antibiotics have the potential to disrupt brain functions, suggests a new research which found that healthy gut bacteria is crucial to keeping the mind sharp.

A special kind of immune cell serves as an intermediary between gut bacteria and the brain, showed the findings that could also help to alleviate the symptoms of mental disorders.

The gut and the brain "talk" to one another via hormones, metabolic products or direct neural connections. 

In this study, the researchers switched off the gut microbiome in mice, that is their intestinal bacteria, with a strong concoction of antibiotics. 

Compared to the mice that had not undergone treatment, they subsequently observed significantly fewer newly formed nerve cells in the hippocampus region of the brain. 

The memory of the treated mice also deteriorated because the formation of these new brain cells - a process known as neurogenesis - is important for certain memory functions.

As well as impaired neurogenesis, the researchers also found that the population of a specific immune cell in the brain - the Ly6C(hi) monocytes - decreased significantly when the microbiota was switched off. 

Applied to humans, the findings do not show that all antibiotics disrupt brain function, as the combination of drugs used in the study was extremely potent.

"It is possible, however, that similar effects could result from treatments involving long-term use of antibiotics," said one of the researchers Susanne Wolf from Max Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin, Germany.

The findings were published in the journal Cell Reports. 

The research team also found that the antibiotics may affect neurogenesis directly, and not act only via the gut bacteria.

The new study is also of significance for treating people with mental disorders such as schizophrenia or depression, who also have impaired neurogenesis, Wolf said.

"In addition to medication and physical exercise, these patients could potentially also benefit from probiotic preparations,” Wolf noted.​

Toronto, May 20 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a type of brain cells that play a key role in reducing the effects of cocaine on the brain.

The discovery establishes that microglia cells can diminish the adverse changes to neural circuitry brought on by the chronic use of cocaine and has significant implications for developing an effective treatment for addiction.

Microglia may not be as well known as neurons, the brain cells that relay messages, but they have many important functions. 

They constantly monitor their environment, and can act to maintain normal brain functioning.

When they find something amiss, they can produce molecules that instruct neurons to make adaptive changes to their connections. One such example is the inflammatory molecule known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF).

"What we discovered is that cocaine activates these microglia, which causes the release of an inflammatory signal which then tries to reverse the changes that cocaine is inducing in the neurons," said the study's senior author David Stellwagen, associate professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The study was published in the journal Neuron.

Using a mouse model, the researchers detected this microglia-mediated reversal.

In further experiments the team used a pharmaceutical agent that stimulates microglial production of the inflammatory molecule known as tumour necrosis factor.

The researchers observed that a cocaine-induced behavioural change in mice, the progressive increase in movement induced by cocaine, was reduced in the animals who received this agent.

This exciting result holds promise for one day developing treatments that could cut down on drug relapse rates, which can run as high as 80 percent. 

"If we could develop a treatment that would suppress the craving that addicts have in stressful situations, or when they are re-exposed to situations in which they'd normally be taking the drug, that may allow them to avoid relapse,” Stellwagen said.

"And that's really the therapeutic goal of the work we have been doing," Stellwagen noted.​

New York, May 20 (IANS) Two large meteorites hit the Red Planet millions of years apart, triggering a pair of mega-tsunamis that forever scarred the Martian landscape and yielded evidence of cold, salty oceans conducive to sustaining life, reveal scientists.

About 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered the first tsunami wave.

“This wave was composed of liquid water. It formed widespread backwash channels to carry the water back to the ocean," said Alberto Fairen, visiting scientist in astronomy at Cornell University.

The scientists found evidence of another big meteorite impact which triggered a second tsunami wave.

In the millions of years between the two meteorite impacts and their associated mega-tsunamis, Mars went through frigid climate change, where water turned to ice.

“The ocean level receded from its original shoreline to form a secondary shoreline, because the climate had become significantly colder,” Fairen added.

The second tsunami formed rounded lobes of ice.

These lobes froze on the land as they reached their maximum extent and the ice never went back to the ocean -- which implies the ocean was at least partially frozen at that time.

“Our paper provides very solid evidence for the existence of very cold oceans on early Mars,” the authors noted.

These icy lobes retained their well-defined boundaries and their flow-related shapes, meaning the frozen ancient ocean was briny.

“Cold, salty waters may offer a refuge for life in extreme environments, as the salts could help keep the water liquid... If life existed on Mars, these icy tsunami lobes are very good candidates to search for biosignatures," Fairen said.

“We have already identified some areas inundated by the tsunamis where the ponded water appears to have emplaced lacustrine sediments, including evaporites," added lead author Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.

“As a follow-up investigation, we plan to characterise these terrains and assess their potential for future robotic or human in-situ exploration,” he noted in Scientific Reports, a publication of the journal Nature.​

New York, May 20 (IANS) The larger the proportion of women on a board of a company, the fewer acquisitions it engages in, says a study.

"We found that this effect existed even if we looked at firms with a single female director on the board," said one of the researchers Craig Crossland from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, US.

The researchers studied almost 3,000 acquisitions between 1998 and 2010 in the US.

"A change in female board representation from low to high levels was associated with an 18 percent decrease in acquisitiveness, a 12 percent decrease in acquisition size and a reduction of $97.2 million in merger and acquisition spending in a given year," Crossland noted.

In the study, published in the Strategic Management Journal, the researchers noted that increasing the proportion of female directors changes the dynamics of intra-board interactions.

"Groups comprised of distinct categories of people operate differently than groups where everyone shares similar characteristics," Crossland said. 

Diverse groups tend to engage in discussions that are more thorough, more contentious and more likely to identify problems with the topic at hand. 

"We think the boards with higher female representation are more likely to identify these challenges in a given deal, increasing the likelihood that it will be delayed or shelved entirely," Crossland explained. 

Crossland emphasised that the researchers are not making any claims that female directors differ from male directors in terms of dispositional tendencies such as risk-taking propensity or openness to experience​

​New York, May 20 (IANS) If you want your kids to shine in life, better brush up your own technical skills and start using online learning tools and games to help your children perform better, suggests new research.

An American study shows that low-income parents are less likely to use these extra resources or, when they do, they do it less effectively because of differences in motivation and parenting practices.

"A key goal for low-income parents is making sure their children stay in school, so often they are more focused on monitoring whether their kids are doing homework and going to class," said lead study author Betsy DiSalvo from Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. 

"Their attention is directed towards school and not what could happen outside the classroom," DiSalvo added.

The team interviewed 63 parents across socio-economic groups and conducted an online survey of 997 parents. 

The researchers found that higher-income parents are more likely to act as resource providers by searching for opportunities outside of school, whether it be a book, online game or extracurricular activities.

There were also differences between how high-income and lower-income parents use social networks for education. 

The results revealed that when low-income parents turn to online resources they face greater challenges and some of them also seem to experience greater face-saving concerns.

"They had lower perceived technical skills when it came to using computers, portable devices and conducting searches online. Even when they could do it, they downplayed their abilities," DiSalvo explained.

"If we can capture these parents and give them access to these educational resources, we can help them help their children, which can improve their learning for all children,” the authors stated.

The study was presented at Association for Computing Machinery's CHI 2016 conference in San Jose, California.​

​Helsinki, May 19 (IANS) A new company called HMD has been allowed to produce mobile phones and tablets in the name of Nokia. The Finnish media called it a resurgence of Nokia brand. Nokia announced on Wednesday that it licensed HMD to produce Nokia branded mobile phones and tablets. The new gadgets will use the Android system. The manufacturer will be Foxconn based in Taiwan, reports Xinhua. HMD has its head office in Helsinki. In a parallel move, Microsoft announced on Wednesday it sold its basic phone business for $350 million to HMD and FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn. HMD and Nokia Technologies have entered an agreement on cooperation with FIH. Licensing the Nokia brand to a new producer became possible following the expiry of the restrictions set in the deal between Nokia and Microsoft in 2013. Nokia remained the owner of the Nokia brand after it sold its handset business to Microsoft for 5.4 billion euros, but was forbidden to license it to outsiders until the end of 2015. The new company HMD has made agreements both with Microsoft and Nokia about the use of the Nokia brand and some design rights. The agreement HMD signs with Nokia is exclusive and valid for 10 years. The agreement with Microsoft has some conditions and only covers the use of the Nokia name in basic phones. Microsoft continues the production of the high-end Lumia smart phones, which will use Windows platforms. Finnish media reported that several experienced executives with Nokia background were involved in the new HMD. The CEO of the company is Arto Nummela. He used to be in charge of marketing Microsoft phones in China. The new Finnish company is planning to spend some 400 million euros to market the Nokia brand for the next three years. Analysts have pondered on the attractiveness of the Nokia image on the mobile gadget market. Hannu Rauhala from the Finnish OP Group told Finnish national radio Yle that the image of Nokia was still fairly strong in the "developing markets". Rauhala also noted that licensing "gives good profit" to Nokia without business risks.​

​Tokyo, May 18 (IANS) The main building of Japan's National Museum of Western Art is scheduled to be registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July.

Officials of Japan's Cultural Affairs Agency on Tuesday said the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a UNESCO advisory panel, has recommended listing of the building, public broadcaster NHK reported.

The building, located in Tokyo, is the only structure that French architect Le Corbusier ever designed in Japan. He is recognised as the grand master of modern architecture.

Japan, France and five other nations had jointly nominated 17 works by Corbusier in their countries as a single entry on the World Heritage List.

The national museum is likely to be officially listed in July when the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets in Turkey.​

​Beijing, May 19 (IANS) A key international tourism conference opened in Beijing on Thursday amid hopes it would generate measures to boost global economic growth and social opportunities in the sector.

Tourism officials from over 100 countries were expected to attend the First World Conference on Tourism for Development, organised by the Chinese government and the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), billing itself as an event that would "start a high-level debate" on the industry's contribution to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), EFE news reported.

"Tourism is one of the most dynamic economic sectors, with significant global reach, and as such can make an important contribution to the achievement of the SDGs, particularly in the areas of job creation, sustainable consumption and production and the preservation of natural resources," said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang delivered a keynote address at the conference as the China National Tourism Administration said it aimed to promote rural tourism as an effective way to fight poverty.

The conference, which continues until May 21, comes after Beijing approved its 13th Five-Year Plan in March aiming to lift 17 percent of the country's impoverished population -- some two million people -- out of poverty by 2020, according to UNWTO.

The China National Tourism Administration hopes the five-year development plan will generate a total income of over 1 trillion yuan ($153 billion), benefiting 50 million rural residents.

Data from the conference indicates that tourism generated 10 percent of global GDP last year, accounting for over nine percent of the world's employment and an estimated 1 billion international tourists crossing borders. ​